WIP: Since nothing is working (and I have ADD) a world from tectonics up

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WIP: Since nothing is working (and I have ADD) a world from tectonics up

or... sort of.

I found this tutorial on tectonics, read it all, decided it was more complicated than the tutorial stated, used the tutorial as the basis for drawing my plates, and now I'm going to peck away at it till I have a planet

I figure, I'm getting nowhere with anything else I'm trying to do, and I NEED a map for my novel, or I'm never going to write it. Plus I get bored if I'm only working on one map, so I need another area to turn to

So....................

yeah.

I drew these plates, and (from other posts in the tutorial thread and elsewhere) I know they move a little less firmly than the arrows show, so I've copied them down on paper, cut them apart, and am moving them by hand (fun) to see where they might end up.

I'm probably going to have to take lots of other pics of the movements to watch my landmasses change/grow/disappear, so I figured, "Why not post it on CG so that people can tell me when I screw up?" and then I said "What a great idea, Jalyha! Who cares what the experts say, you ARE a genius."

And then I spent about an hour chatting with me, and complimenting ourselves back and forth, and then tried to draw a big pangea-continent and it didn't work, so I came here to post!

After reading the comments in the tutorial listed above, and re-reading this one I was kind of stuck on how to proceed. I want to reflect semi-accurately all the different ways the plates move... but how, when I just have flat pieces?

So... my generic solution was threading each piece on a piece of string and winding them all (almost fitting perfectly, YAY) around a styrofoam crafting ball.

I think I will fold some bits down where they would sink back into the ocean, and look at the blank spaces in between that occur with the movement of the shrinking plates as new plate/land growth from the other side.

It might not work well, but I figure it's less random than just pushing the plates in the direction of my shaky arrows, yes?

And... that way I had no way to tell what the new plates/land masses would be doing, so after a half hour of pointlessness, I switched to a bigger ball, bigger landmasses/plates, and some playdoh.

The playdoh worked better, and it only took about 5-10 minutes once I switched to that, partly because playdoh is easy to mold, and partly because I'd already figured out where the starting plates were going.... of course, playdoh smears, so... probably lost a little of my accuracy that way, and since I don't understand tectonics well, I probably messed up a lot.

And I stopped making mountains and stuff at this point, cause I've stopped moving my landmasses, I figure I've slowed down to real-time, so...

Here's what I'm working with at this point (The white thingies will be mountains/volcanic islands, the others are for my own reference.

I think the coastlines tutorials will help with the erosion factors, so the continents won't be so... blobby.

And that was the fun/easy part ^.^

Next, unless someone notices any glaring problems, I will rough up the coasts, and fix up the mountain ranges, and then I might work on wind/climate issues

I'm trying REALLY hard not to concentrate on anything aesthetic right now, so please, no one say it's ugly... I'll try to make it pretty once I have all the other stuffs worked out.

What kind of projection is that 2D map? The majority of map projections (especially ones that are rectangles and not some weird shape) stretch the pole out along one or more edges, so it's pretty common that such an edge has to be filled with all land or all sea. To say otherwise means that the pole is right on the coast somehow. That COULD happen, but it's unlikely. That also gives you an odd channel that cuts through your southern continent and stops right at the south pole (but there might be some interesting canonical explanation for that).

Relatedly, anything that seems to "point" at the top or bottom edges of the map is pointing at the pole, so it looks like the north pole has three continents converging on it. Again, narrative significance reigns supreme, so if it's all for the point of telling a good story, then it's absolutely fine.

To say otherwise means that the pole is right on the coast somehow. That COULD happen, but it's unlikely.

Wait, if Antarctica on Earth is gradually moving north, then at some point the South Pole will eventually be coastal, won't it? And the same would be true of any landmass moving south, or have I missed something?